


Watching

by angeleledhwen (kallistei), eledhwen (kallistei)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-18
Updated: 2003-03-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1802248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/angeleledhwen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/eledhwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching is an art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

**Author's Note:**

> Response to [this](http://www.livejournal.com/community/contrelamontre/107945.htmlmode=reply) challenge.

Watching is an art, he reminds himself. Something he has perfected over the years. Watching is an art, but more than that, it is his art. He has watched many people over the years, donning the masks that turn his intent appraisal into something ordinary and expected, at least on the surface.

He used to watch Lucius Malfoy, James Potter, Narcissa Perrault. For seven years, he watched them, and a surge of burning alkaline bile would rise in his throat every time he saw the way the rest of the school watched them, with unrestrained admiration rising sharp in their eyes. Sharp as knives, to pierce his obsessing mind. He always made sure that they never saw anything of the sort in his more discreet surveillance, not that they ever looked in his direction. Yet, it would have ruined his pride had they glanced at him, and seen it.

The promise he saw in the man once known as Tom Riddle was that he would no longer have to watch the powerful and respected, and long to possess that indefinable something they had that gained them admiration. Years later, as he looked up through the eyeholes of his most physical mask at the creature who called himself Lord Voldemort, he finally saw the lie. He watched Malfoy, and he watched Voldemort. For the first time, he watched himself, and wanted to vomit at the realisation that his craving had allowed him to be stripped of what little power he had once owned in his refusal to show that he wanted.

James Potter’s son came to Hogwarts. He watched the boy now, keeping a promise he had made long ago and attempting to pay off a debt he had owed for almost fifteen years. After a time, he watched out of sheer habit, filing away small gems of knowledge about him more obsessively than he had those of any other he’d watched, safe behind his mask of disdain.

A Feast is held on the day Harry Potter leaves Hogwarts, celebrating the defeat of the man who had proved to him the danger of showing there was something he longed for. That night, he sees Potter and Granger exchanging languid, elated kisses, half-hidden behind a curtain. He turns and sweeps out of the Great Hall, feeling a familiar surge of burning alkaline rise in his throat.

Severus Snape has learnt better than to show he wants what he cannot have, but it cannot change what he feels for those who keep him from his craving.


End file.
